When traveling, the transport of luggage can often be a burdensome ordeal. And, despite the difficulty and inconvenience of having to tote heavy suitcases throughout one's journey, many air travelers prefer to carry their luggage on the plane in order to avoid delays at their destination. The practice of carrying luggage onto the airplane has increased as airlines continue to institute baggage fees. In recent years, however, many airlines have implemented strict policies, limiting the size and number of pieces of luggage which can be carried on the plane. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to fit all of one's items in a small suitcase. Luggage pieces which do not meet the carry-on size limitations must be checked with the airline for storage in the plane's cargo compartments. In addition to delays encountered when waiting for checked luggage, as well as the possibility of losing the luggage, an oversize suitcase is difficult to carry and transport, especially when traveling to more than one destination.
In an attempt to pack more clothing and articles in a smaller suitcase, virtually every traveler has encountered the inevitable battle of zipping closed an overstuffed suitcase. This is a particularly common dilemma for those traveling to colder climates, such as ski destinations, wherein the packed articles of clothing tend to be bulky, such as sweaters, jackets, ski suits, and the like.
In the past, others have developed collapsible storage containers which typically include a flexible, air tight bag, and a fixture through which to evacuate excess air. When the air tight bag has been filled with one or more articles, air is evacuated through the fixture, causing the bag to collapse, thereby compressing the articles therein so that the storage container is easier to transport and store in a smaller space.
Articles of travel for the most part comprise clothing which retains a lot of dead airspace between fibers. As such, articles of clothing take up an inordinate amount of space in a suitcase. To effectively store articles of travel, the user generally must depress the articles of travel manually or apply a force by hand to said articles of travel in order to minimize their volume. The elastic forces of the fibers of clothing does not allow the clothing to retain a minimum storage configuration without some additional manual force applied to compress them into the storage chambers of the apparatus. This can sometimes lead to loss of neatness, winkling and rumpling of clothing, a situation every traveler must contend with. To solve this problem, some ideas have been developed by others that rely on separately storing clothing in pre-made vacuum bags that can compress the clothing when a vacuum is applied to them. These bags are separate from the suitcase and have no formal shape or design intent other than storing individual clothing item in a pre-compressed state for later storage in a suitcase. Thus several such bags are need to store articles of travel effectively. Further, the separate storage bag systems are designed to be rolled into a cylinder by hand, with the stored articles of clothing in them, so that so that all air is removed from the stored articles of clothing. This can cause wrinkling, rumpling and undesired results when suits and other sensitive clothes that must be stored wrinkle-free are stored using such systems. Further they do not form a simple single integrated system for storing articles of clothing, and are generally bought separately from the suitcases. Further, when such existing systems are used to store clothing in a suitcase, they can move about in the suitcase and offer no anchoring system for the clothing stored in them, so that their efficiency in keeping clothes wrinkle free during storage diminishes considerably. The present invention allows the user to have all the advantages of effective and efficient storage of clothing and other articles of travel, without the disadvantages outlined above. Further, the present invention is a simple and unified method of storing articles of travel in a suitcase without the disadvantages and inconvenience of using separate bags and containers for the same. Further, the apparatus of the present invention allows all the articles of clothing stored inside a suitcase to be kept together and neatly in the confines of the suitcase with little or no wrinkling.
Furthermore, once a trip is completed, a traveler often has a great deal of soiled clothing and some clean clothing. Many travelers do not wish to store soiled clothing and clean clothing in the same storage area as soiled clothing may have an odor which may permeate into the clean clothing. Therefore, many travelers place soiled clothing in bags that are then placed in the suitcase. This is a slight improvement on the situation where all clothing is stored together, but much improvement is still needed.
Accordingly, there is a need for a suitcase having a collapsible packing system therein to thereby increase the holding capacity of the suitcase.